THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 369 



lefs, perpetually kept up by the trading nations themfelves, 

 from the ports of India and Africa, and on the Red Sea from 

 Edom. 



The pilots from thefe ports alone, of all the world, had 

 a fecret confined to their own knowledge, upon which the 

 fuccefs of thefe voyages depended. This was the pheno- 

 mena of the trade-winds* and monfoons, which the pilots 

 of Sefoftris knew; and which thofe of Nearchus feem to 

 have taught him only in part, in his voyage afterwards, 

 and of which we are to fpeak in the fequel. Hiflory fays 

 further of Sefoftris, that the Egyptians confidered him as 

 their greateft benefactor, for having laid open to them the 

 trade both of India and Arabia, for having overturned the 

 dominion of the Shepherd kings ; and, laftly, for having re- 

 flored to the Egyptian individuals each their own lands, 

 which had been wrefted from them by the violent hands of 

 the Ethiopian Shepherds, during the firft ufurpation of thefe 

 princes. 



In memory of his having happily accomplifhed thefe 

 events, Sefoftris is faid to have built a ihip of cedar of a 

 hundred and twenty yards in length, the outfide of which 

 he covered with plates of gold, and the infide with plates 

 of filver, and this he dedicated in the temple of His. I will 

 not enter into the defence of the probability of his reafons 

 for having built a fhip of this fize, and for fuch a purpofe, 

 as one of ten yards would have fufficiently anfwered. The 



Vol. I. 3 A ufe 



* Thefe are far from being fynonymous terms, as we fliall fee afterwards. 



